Lankinen makes 31 saves, Blackhawks defeat Hurricanes

CHICAGO -- Kevin Lankinen made 31 saves for the Chicago Blackhawks in a 2-1 win against the Carolina Hurricanes at United Center on Tuesday.

Dylan Strome and Alex DeBrincat scored for the Blackhawks (17-15-5), who had lost two straight.
"The first period, we didn't create much at all and they had some chances (outshot 13-5)," Chicago coach Jeremy Colliton said. "We bent but didn't break. I really liked the last two periods. We had a big push back right away. It's a big goal to get the lead. We built some confidence from that and then we defended hard."
Andrei Svechnikov scored, and Alex Nedeljkovic made 14 saves for the Hurricanes (23-8-3), who had a five-game point streak end.
"The first was our best period by far and then we didn't build off that, didn't continue that pace of play," Carolina defenseman Brady Skjei said. "We have to come back on Thursday and get two points out of this trip."
Strome, who did not play against the Nashville Predators on Sunday because of the birth of his daughter, scored 29 seconds into the second period with a wrist shot from the right circle on a 2-on-1 with Mattias Janmark to give Chicago a 1-0 lead.
"I was looking to Janmark the whole time, but [Hurricanes defenseman Brett Pesce] took away the pass, so I just saw high glove and shot it," Strome said.

DeBrincat made it 2-0 at 4:02 with a power-play goal near the right post after Patrick Kane stole the puck from Pesce in the slot. DeBrincat has scored 19 goals in 33 games after scoring 18 in 70 games last season.
"We gave them two right away to start the second," Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour said. "We just said, 'Here you go, here's two goals.' Just very, very frustrating because it's tough in the NHL to come back when you just give teams goals. It's one thing to make them earn them, but we just said, 'Here you go.' So that was frustrating.
"It just took the sails out of us a little bit from there on. It's not like we played a poor game, we just had a couple of hiccups there that cost us."
Svechnikov made it 2-1 at 15:41 of the second when his deflection of Skjei's shot from along the left wall deflected off Blackhawks defenseman Wyatt Kalynuk's left leg. Vincent Trocheck, who missed the previous eight games with an upper-body injury, had an assist.
"It seemed like we were able to pack it in and understand that every puck and battle that you're in is a valuable one to the game and the team," Blackhawks defenseman Connor Murphy said. "It seemed like we showed that a little more tonight. They got their looks, but as it got to crunch time of the game later on, it seemed like guys were very desperate to help each other out in the battles."

NOTES:Hurricanes defenseman Dougie Hamilton had his point streak end at 14 games. The defenseman scored 16 points (two goals, 14 assists) during the longest point streak in the NHL this season. … Carolina won 64 percent of the face-offs (41-for-64), led by Jordan Staal, who was 18-for-21 (86 percent). … Chicago was 1-for-1 on the penalty kill and is 8-for-8 in its past four games. … Kane has scored seven points (one goal, six assists) during a five-game point streak. … Murphy had a game-high five blocked shots and 26:00 of ice time.